Tifa Lockhart's Contest History
Who is Tifa? It's much easier to understand who Tifa is by going into events that happen before Final Fantasy 7 begins. Tifa and Cloud both grew up in the same hometown, called Nibelhiem. Cloud was a bit of an introvert at the time, and though he always had feelings for Tifa he could never get her to spend time with him. Tifa's lovely habit of always hanging out with the popular kids in town didn't help Cloud's feelings out much, either. Eventually an accident occurs in the Nibel Mountains that injures Tifa pretty badly, and virtually the entire town treats Cloud like an outcast. Cloud decides that the only way to really win Tifa over would be to become strong like everyone else -- culminating in Cloud aiming right for the top and aspiring to be in Shinra's SOLDIER unit. Before Cloud leaves Nibelhiem to join the Shinra, he and Tifa share an evening at the town well. Cloud promises Tifa that if she ever needs protection, he'll be there. Cloud goes on to make it into SOLDIER fairly easily.... so he thinks. After the party gets out of Midgar in the beginning of the game, a flashback occurs in Kalm in which Cloud discusses one of his first missions in SOLDIER. He was to return to Nibelhiem with Sephiroth, kill some monsters outside the Mako Reactor and investigate the cause of the monsters. The party that makes it to the reactor is Cloud, Sephiroth, Tifa (who is acting as a tour guide to the reactor as she knows the mountains well), and a lone Shinra Soldier. When Sephiroth learns of the true events hidden behind his identity, he snaps. He kills Tifa's father, almost kills Tifa, releases Jenova from imprisonment in the reactor, and burns down Nibelhiem. The lone problem with Cloud's memory is that during all of this, he ran into the reactor to confront Sephiroth. It's there that his memory freezes and he can't remember what happens afterwards. During the entire time Cloud is telling this story, Tifa acts like she's hiding something, almost as if she knows that what Cloud says isn't true. Unfortunately, it takes almost the entire game for her to muster up the nerve to help Cloud to see the truth -- and this only comes out of necessity. The excuse that Tifa fans make is that she does this because she doesn't want to hurt Cloud any more than he already is, though the case can also be made that Tifa is a simple idiot. It depends on whether or not you the player actually like her character, I suppose. Tifa plays the role of the strong good-looking girl in FF7, though she's hardly a bimbo. She's actually very smart, and her along with Barret help keep AVALANCHE (an underground resistance movement against Shinra) afloat. She's also stuck in the middle of the Cloud/Aeris/Tifa love triangle that everyone loves talking about, though Aeris getting impaled certainly helped solve that little problem. She's overall a fairly decent character, but there are a lot of shortcomings in her personality that one needs to look past in order to enjoy her character in the game. Tifa generally does love Cloud, but has the damndest time showing it until very late in the game. "Cloud... words aren't the only thing that tells people what you're thinking..." - Tifa Tifa's Contest History Win-Loss Record: 16-6 Summer 2005 Contest - Chaos Division - 3 Seed * Chaos Round 1 --- Defeated (6) Vyse, 75159 78.07% - 21114 21.93% * Chaos Semifinal --- Defeated (2) Luigi, 54588 53.36% - 47705 46.64% * Chaos Final --- Lost to (1) Sonic, 46155 43.60% - 59703 56.40% * Extrapolated Strength --- 16th Place 30.77% Being a Final Fantasy 7 character, Tifa was a near-lock to make it to the Chaos Division final. Some even felt that she could give Sonic a match due to how well Aeris did against him in 2003. Tifa came flying out of the gate, making Vyse look absolutely horrendous to the point where some feel that Vyse needs an SFF adjustment in the stats -- and this makes sense, because Vyse went from beating Laharl 60-40 to being below Laharl in the stats the following year. Though in the second round Tifa didn't deliver nearly the beating against Luigi that would put her on Sonic's level (Luigi actually made a decent comeback scare before Tifa finally put him away), and her fate was pretty much sealed at that point. She actually won a few updates against Sonic very early, but the morning vote just killed her. Still, 57-43 isn't that bad (despite being borderline destruction by Ulti standards <_<) and she lost to Sonic in a very high-scoring match. Assuming Tifa gets past all of the FF7 nomination siphoning and makes the field, being a perpetual top 20 character in the stats is hardly out of the question. The real debate however is how the hierarchy goes with her, Vincent and Aeris. Perhaps we'll see the answer to that in the future. Summer 2006 Contest - Limit Division - 1 Seed * Limit Round 1 --- Defeated (8) Ivy Valentine, 96118 76.18% - 30046 23.82% * Limit Semifinal --- Defeated (4) The Boss, 90595 74.55% - 30934 25.45% * Limit Final --- Defeated (2) Peach, 79830 66.05% - 41033 33.95% * Contest Quarterfinal --- Lost to (1) Samus, 71355 49.51% - 72773 50.49% * Extrapolated Strength --- 2nd Place 49.51% After mowing through her division, Tifa gave the eventual champion Samus her toughest match of the contest in a dead even affair. She would have beaten Samus were it not for a good Nintendo day vote, but the final numbers on Tifa are suspect due to that goofy match. No one outside of no-life delusional idiots (Vlado) thinks that Tifa or her division is truly as strong as that match would indicate, and any number of things could be blamed for it. We'll just wait to wait and see what happens next, but most will assume a reality check come next contest. Unless you think Tifa is suddenly a Noble Nine threat and this match was legit. Summer 2008 Contest - Division 8 - Third Group *Division 8 Round 1 --- 2nd place, 37583 28.49% - Sephiroth, 62298 47.23% - Ratchet, 18377 13.93% - Nana, 13657 10.35% *Division 8 Round 2 --- 3rd place, 27259 20.06% - Sephiroth, 56444 41.53% - Kratos, 32949 24.25% - Jill Valentine, 19246 14.16% "Reality check", indeed. Tifa's reward for finishing at #2 in the X-Stats in 2006 was to completely miss the field in 2007 despite the expansion to 128 contestants. She returned in 2008, only to wind up in the same opening-round four-pack as Sephiroth, a bad beat for anyone but especially rough on another FF7 character. Despite her unfavorable situation, she performed admirably, advancing to the second round and avoiding an SFF doubling while beating the combined output of the 3rd- and 4th-place finishers, then avoiding last place despite the SFF even after the competition grew tougher in Round 2. Given a more favorable bracket, she could easily be a solid midcarder and one of the strongest female characters out there. Winter 2010 Contest '- Jenova Division - 10 Seed * Jenova Round 1 --- Defeated (7) Yuri Lowell, 41679 78.70% - 11278 21.30% * Jenova Round 2 --- Defeated (2) Gordon Freeman, 48006 61.96% - 29467 38.04% * Jenova Semifinal --- Defeated (14) Big Daddy, 43662 60.45% - 28562 39.55% * Jenova Final --- Lost to (1) Sephiroth, 35253 43.84% - 45168 56.16% * Extrapolated Strength --- 10th Place 36.72% Tifa was extremely underseeded this contest. There was some talk of Gordon beating Tifa because of his recent Gamespot victory but no she managed to take out her first three opponents with ease. Her final match was with Sephiroth. FF7 aren't capable of SFFing each other so it was nice to see it somewhat close. 'Summer 2013 Contest - Division 7 - 7 Seed * Division 7 Round 1 --- 1st place, 17408 61.86% - (21) Chun Li 7517 26.71% - (12) Cirno, 3215 11.43% * Division 7 Round 2 --- 1st place, 12493 44.56% - (3) Dragonborn, 8532 30.43% - (15) Yuna, 7009 25.00% * Division 7 Final --- 2nd place, 17705 33.81% - (1) Samus Aran, 21836 41.70% - (8) L-Block, 12826 24.49% Tifa performed well enough in round 1, and in an all-RPG match averted the Final Fantasy LFF brought by Yuna to beat Skyrim lead Dragonborn. The division finals proved Tifa had a following stronger than any joke backing L-Block could get (and in a contest dominated by rallying, they could mean something!). While she failed to reach her 2006 levels against Samus she still had an impressive performance against her, surprising the board. Fall 2018 Contest - Division 7 - 3 Seed * Division 7 Round 1 --- Defeated (14) Geno, 22399 73.19% - 8205 26.81% * Division 7 Round 2 --- Defeated (11) Mewtwo, 16669 58.1% - 12023 41.9% * Division 7 Semifinal --- Defeated (2) Mega Man X, 16269 50.18% - 16155 49.82% * Division 7 Finals --- Defeated (1) Luigi, 15997 51.36% - 15149 48.64% * Legends Round 1 --- Lost to (2) Samus Aran, 12085 41.07% - 17343 58.93% * Loser Bracket Round 1 --- Defeated Sephiroth, 13545 52.33% - 12340 47.67% * Loser Bracket Round 2 --- Lost to (2) Samus Aran, 11705 41.42% - 16557 58.58% Testing Tifa's strength is pretty hard when the bracket always places puts the same two Noble Niners on her path. Sure, she slaughtered in round 1 and proved Mewtwo was a fraud afterwards. Then came a highly contested and entertaining bout against a repainted N9er, where Tifa's close win over X might have had help from rallies in hentai boards (!). Even with Final Fantasy falling and Nintendo rising, Tifa defeated Luigi again to make the division her own. Her reward for reaching the Legends bracket? A third encounter with Samus, who continues to be an impossible hurdle. Being a double elimination affair was hardly any consolation when Sephiroth awaited... if only not for the fact FFVII's villain has decayed so much that the third time was the charm for Tifa to rSFF him. Then comes Samus again, and Tifa only scored a bit better, although with less votes, proving a near-upset like their 2006 encounter is borderline impossible for Tifa in these Nintendo-favoring days. Category:Contest Histories